---
title: 'Backend Engineer (Infrastructure & Platform) (f/m/d) at Zeit AI (YC S24)'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/backend-engineer-infrastructure-platform-f-m-d-zeit-ai-yc-s24-munich-e5p8bant3zwm'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-05'
---

# Backend Engineer (Infrastructure & Platform) (f/m/d) at Zeit AI (YC S24)

- **Company:** Zeit AI (YC S24)
- **Location:** Munich, Germany
- **Compensation:** €95k–€270k
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2026-07-09
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-05
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/zeit-ai/9e98cdf3-bdaf-4723-8bd8-2641c3e8685e

## Job description

## THE OPPORTUNITY

LLMs are changing analytical work. Capabilities that once required large teams of highly paid data engineers are becoming accessible to smaller companies for the first time. At Palantir, we delivered real data and BI value, but deployments never scaled without expensive, hands-on engineers. We believe LLMs change that, and we have the customers and revenue to prove the model works.

Now we scale and one key lever is the platform. Every new customer brings new data sources, more rows to sync, and more queries to serve. Your job is to make sure ZeitMind, our autonomous data engineer, can handle onboarding 10 new enterprise customers per week and the hard part isn't the compute. It's capturing each business's context fast enough: connecting messy data systems, making sure the agent's answers are correct, that visualisations hold up, and that the customer is able to get value out of the product quickly. This is as much a product and correctness problem as an infrastructure one, and it hasn't been solved before. Onboarding a customer should be boring. This is the role that lets everything else scale.

## WHAT YOU WILL DO

- Build the sync layer: millions of rows from ERP, CRM, and homegrown systems, ingested incrementally and reliably, without an engineer babysitting the pipeline
- Cut onboarding time: connecting a new customer's data sources should take hours, not weeks. You abstract sources so our agents work with any of them the same way
- Make the agent fast where it counts: speed comes from tool design that parallelizes, sub-agents, and branching, not tokens per second. You design tools so work can run concurrently and safely
- Route data safely between customer networks and ours: security and reliability are features our customers pay for
- Build the guardrails for correctness: automatic checks and integrated validation tooling so the agent's output can be trusted, and so it flags what a human should verify
- Keep the platform simple: choose boring technology where boring wins, and be able to say why every system we run earns its place

## YOU WILL THRIVE HERE IF YOU

- have built or scaled data platforms before and think clearly about data processing architectures
- have a deep understanding of OLAP and OLTP systems and when to reach for each
- bring strong backend experience with TypeScript and are at home in cloud infrastructure
- get foundations right without overengineering them; you build for the scale we will hit next year, not for a hypothetical one
- take full ownership from idea to production to impact, and are comfortable working without predefined specs
- want to build foundations early rather than optimize mature systems
- are genuinely interested in the data and agentic space and how LLMs enable new workflows for non-technical users

## REQUIREMENTS

- You've been a lead architect or equivalent: built many systems yourself, and seen how large systems fail and evolve. You're here to learn from customers and take bets on a product that doesn't exist yet, not to learn how to write software.
- Strong TypeScript and cloud infrastructure experience
- English C1 or above; German a plus

## WHAT WE OFFER

- Munich is our hub. In-person by design, we support your relocation within Europe.
- Regular team offsites for product sprints and staying close to the frontier.
- Zeit AI package: daily lunch allowance, covered dinner in the office, wellpass membership, best tech & tools
- €5k referral bonus if we hire someone you refer.

## TECH STACK

TypeScript end to end. Backend on Bun with Postgres and Supabase. React frontend (Mantine, TRPC, TanStack Query). Job/Process management, Docker, VPN/routing and Agentic frameworks: harness, tool calls, sandboxed tools, branching of data and specs.

## ABOUT THE INTERVIEW PROCESS

1. First call with Elisa
2. Tech screening
3. Tech interview with Jonas
4. Decomposition interview
5. Second technical interview
6. Behavioural interview
7. Reference check
8. Take-home case + Meet the team
9. Offer

## APPLY

Still apply if you do not match every requirement. If you are exceptional in core areas and learn fast, we want to talk.

## About Zeit AI (YC S24)

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Zeit AI builds an autonomous AI Forward Deployed Engineer that connects to business systems (ERP, CRM, SAP) and turns raw data into operational applications and decisions using natural language.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Startup) — Y Combinator S24 batch, Seed stage
- **Headquarters**: Munich, Germany
- **Founded**: 2024
- **Founders**: Leopold von Waldthausen (CEO) and Marvin Bornstein (CTO)

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Data Infrastructure and Analytics, Enterprise AI
- **Target customers**: Mid-market and enterprise companies in Europe, specifically heads of controlling, operations managers, and business operators who rely on ERP, CRM, and SAP systems
- **Mission**: To build the first AI Forward Deployed Engineer for the European market — an autonomous system that connects to source systems, prepares messy data, and turns business questions into operational applications in natural language.

## Products & Services
- **ZeitMind**: The core product — an autonomous AI system that connects to business systems (ERP, CRM, SAP, etc.), cleans messy data, and builds custom operational applications and dashboards using natural language. No IT or data engineering team required. Use cases include inventory control, procurement analytics, financial controlling, and margin risk detection.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation**: Not publicly disclosed
- **Total Funding**: $625,000 USD (Seed round led by Y Combinator, with a prior pre-seed round)
- **Key Metric**: Reached €1M ARR within 12 months of founding
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Y Combinator (S24 batch), backed by top global investors and industry leaders
- **Growth Signals**: 10 employees (+66.7% YoY), 8 active job postings, reached €1M ARR in first year, customer results include €700k saved through AI inventory control, €24M in unified procurement data, 370 hours back per month from automated reporting

## Competitive Advantages
- **Founder-market fit**: Both founders are former Palantir Forward Deployed Engineers who built and deployed the first instances of Palantir's AIP platform and generated over €50M in new revenue for large industrial clients
- **Speed of deployment**: Claims to deliver measurable results within weeks, not months — a risk-free, low-friction onboarding model
- **Natural language interface**: Business users can build analytics, dashboards, and workflows without engineering effort, using plain language
- **In-person, forward-deployed model**: Engineers work directly at customer sites, ensuring deep integration and rapid value delivery
- **YC-backed credibility**: Part of Y Combinator's Summer 2024 batch, with strong investor backing

## Strategic Focus
- **European market dominance**: Specifically targeting European industrial and mid-market companies that rely on SAP, ERP, and CRM systems
- **Product-led growth**: Building an autonomous system that scales from initial use cases (inventory, procurement, controlling) to full operational control
- **Hiring aggressively**: 8 open positions across engineering, forward-deployed, sales, and GTM — signaling a push to scale the team and customer base
- **Proven ROI model**: Using a six-month engagement to prove value, track savings, and validate impact before scaling

## Why Work Here
- **High-impact, small team**: A team of 10 engineers, builders, and operators — every hire has outsized ownership and impact
- **YC-backed startup**: Part of Y Combinator's Summer 2024 batch, with strong investor support and a clear growth trajectory
- **In-person culture**: Munich-based, in-person work — not remote. Engineers are forward-deployed at customer sites, not behind a screen
- **Cutting-edge AI work**: Building with frontier models to solve real, messy enterprise data problems — the kind of work that was previously only possible at Palantir or large tech companies
- **Founding team pedigree**: Founders are ex-Palantir (Leopold led DACH business, Marvin deployed first AIP instances). Early engineers come from Palantir, BCG, and top European tech companies
- **Transparent and principled culture**: The team operates on five core principles: Bias for Action, Live Growth, Ownership, Candor, and Craftsmanship
- **Competitive compensation**: Salaries range from €70K–€120K EUR for engineering roles, with equity (0.10%–1.00%) for founding team members
- **Real business impact**: Customer results include €700k saved in inventory control, €450k in procurement savings, and 90% reduction in Excel reporting

## Sources
1. [zeit-ai.com](https://www.zeit-ai.com/)
2. [zeit-ai.com/about-us](https://www.zeit-ai.com/about-us)
3. [ycombinator.com](https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/zeit-ai)
4. [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/zeit-ai)
5. [jobs.ashbyhq.com](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/zeit-ai)

## Other roles at Zeit AI (YC S24)

- [Founders Associate (Growth & Marketing) (f/m/d)](https://feeny.ai/job/founders-associate-growth-marketing-f-m-d-zeit-ai-yc-s24-munich-k07sm1wg5ay1) — Munich, Germany
- [(Senior) Business Development Representative (f/m/d)](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-business-development-representative-f-m-d-zeit-ai-yc-s24-munich-3pc48ydrpeyw) — Munich, Germany
- [Forward-Deployed Engineer (f/m/d)](https://feeny.ai/job/forward-deployed-engineer-f-m-d-zeit-ai-yc-s24-munich-jxancbsvcpst) — Munich, Germany
- [(Junior) Account Executive (f/m/d)](https://feeny.ai/job/junior-account-executive-f-m-d-zeit-ai-yc-s24-munich-h3wk4gmstxz8) — Munich, Germany